New Wheels - upto £500 & alloy

ugo.santalucia

Calpol wrote:

Mickyg88 wrote:

Thankyou to the cycle clinic for a very fair and straight answer, but to be expected from you anyway, and Ugo also.
One last point, which you can ignore if your getting bored, what if cycle clinic or Ugo (just for example) took 10 guys off the street, trained them to your requirements, then had them sat in a small warehouse building wheels all day,to conform to your QC, which you then sold via a retailer, do you then become a supplier of factory built wheels rather than handbuilt?

Good point. FWIW I think there is plenty room in the market for both.Its good that we still have people who want to take the artisan approach rather than just looking at maximizing margins. The ability to get a bespoke product tailored to an individuals needs and at a very reasonable cost is rare and should be cherished however it doesn't mean that anyone buying a mass produced product should be chastised also. We all have choice right? I am sure that if Ugo was inclined to operate a more commercial venture then he could be quite successful. Wheelsmith.co.uk seems however to be suffering from the problem of becoming too successful for their own principles/capacity.

Many set up similar enterprises, often without much testing behind. Problem is if you want to build volumes of wheels, you need volumes of components, that only the Chinese/taiwanese market can offer reliably... then you end up building clones, the same as all those Soul, Swiss side, Pro Lite etc etc... effectively you design stickers and spend time running a commercial business... not sure what that has to share with being a part-time artisan, in fairness.

Bar Shaker

When I looked for wheels on my last bike, I was won over by the R&D that the bigger companies do. They make the components that the hand builders buy and string together but I had no problem with buying off the shelf wheels that did what I wanted.

I bought Kysirium Elites and boy did they do what I wanted! They are superb for my 76kg frame. Fast, stiff and superb for climbing/sprinting.

That my new bike came with them saved me almost £500 as I would definitely have bought another set.